BACK ON THE ROAD AGAIN...

since Saturday.

We managed to get the car just after posting the last post, and were on the way home an hour later- after lunch.

We made it all the way to Bangalore by late evening just in time for the Christmas party but were not in time to see the children singing Christmas carols. A sore disappointment I can tell you.

Stayed in Bangalore with Gina (2nd cousin?) and her fiance, Rob. Both were so welcoming and lived luxury unavailable even in Leytonstone (with a pool and nice sheets and everything) that it felt a little strange to be going once more and it was with difficultly that we left the Marmite and chocolate spread on Monday morning.



Have managed to find camping spots out of the direct line of traffic but we slept on Monday night to the accompaniment of religious chanting and thundering lorries. We have, as yet, been unable to find any of the nice acomodation promised by daddy. Typical.



Last night's camping was marginally better although the random blowing up of the local hills in the middle of the night by quarrymen, had the camp slightly on edge.



Festive preparations well underway with Lewis currently employed making Christmas decorations. Will soon crack out the Christmas lights purchased from the $2 shop in Singapore.



Daddy and Tessie have been enjoying themselves on the Indian roads, where it appears that the only rule of driving is: there are no rules. They are not particularly aggressive but rather they seem to have a lax attitude when it comes to their safety and that of those around them.

However, the drivers have not been our main problem where Wilma and Larry are concerned: our main problem is scraping Wilma on the, seemingly foot high, invisible, rocky speed bumps that exist only to supprise us.

So far have not hit a cow, only a dog. It is daddy's first dog.

Most of his road rage addressed at the traffic that is unable to properly cross level crossings. Daddy repeatedly banged on the window of one driver. Classic.



We are unsure where we will be for Christmas. Somewhere busy and un-Christmasy no doubt. We envy granny and the peace and quiet that she will get on Christmas day, watching the Dr. Who Christmas special, as all good people must, I hope.

Currently in Adilibad, 600 miles from Chennai; it is around the centre of India as we are pretty much going to drive straight up the middle. Just had a family luch in a working men's club.

Internet connection terribly slow but not as slow as yesterday when we were unable to access the blog at all.

Still in Chennai

We have been enjoying the cricket immensely and on the first day of play we stayed for the whole day. It has made our trip worthwhile.
However, we have been delayed for a few days now, and whilst the cricket is good, if we stay much longer we will not meet even our rough deadline for being back in London. By the time we leave we will have only 4 weeks to complete what was supposed to be a 6 week journey. Oh well, I have full confidence in our making it.
The reason we have been delayed is because we have had so much trouble retrieving Wilma and Larry from customs. The man we hired to sort out the paperwork for us kept telling us that he needed to get one more stamp and that we were unable to pick up the car time and time again.
There was a bit of a palaver with the opening of the container (done yesterday) as they were originally going to have it opened without us being there. It was good that daddy insisted we had to be there as when it was actually opened they were quiet rough and disruptive with out belongings.
We were 5 hours at the customs as they were 2 hours late with our stamped paperwork.
As we were cruising home in the successfully rescued Wilma, with Larry in tow we realised that the man we hired had not given back all of our paperwork. We were supposed to leave this morning but the man decided to hold us ransom until we paid his bill today, a bill that is outrageously high with lots of 'hidden extras'. He would not even tell us were our paperwork is and insists we need another stamp from customs even though the office is closed today. Daddy and Tessie have gone to sort him out but we fear that we may have to stay until Monday which would mean missing a Christmas party in Bangalore with daddy's cousin tonight. most disappointing.
Am currently watching the cricket. England doing very poorly.

Anyone for Tea or Coffee

Stall holder just outside the bird park. He was selling shots of Indian-style coffee heated in the pot in the left of the photograph.

The whole crew at the bird park on the mum's favourite bench that she had been waiting to become available.
l-r: Rajesh, Loong, mother, Rahani, daddy, Lewis, Darani.

We are about to become fully fledged members of the BARMY ARMY

Cricket madness will commence tomorrow as we make our trip to India worthwhile by going to see the first test match in Chennai.
We are all most excited but am a little worried that the picking up of Wilma and Larry that is supposed to be taking place tomorrow will disrupt our viewing.
Naturally not worried about terrorists attacks but are worried about the threat of rain especially as we have had showers over the last few days.
We bought 8 tickets at 300 rupees which is bloody cheap for us but are expensive for the locals and so are actually the best seats.
After we had quickly bought our tickets (no queue) we were stopped by a local camera man and asked to make fools of ourselves by giving an impromptu interview. embarrassing, especially daddy talking about fair play and it being the taking part that counts.
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Also, we have not yet been able to see our container but daddy has managed to make sure that they will not open it without us being there and so stopping some potential problems. We are hoping that we can get Wilma and Larry back without having to pay any bribes.

We have also had to stop downloading things from the internet at Darani's house as we have gone over the download limit and, as we are responsible people, do not want them to have to pay for daddy's Cliff Richard collection.

We also understand that some people have been having trouble commenting on our blog. We hope that this does not deter people from commenting although understand that this may be a problem only experienced by the uninitiated few.

Still in Chennai waiting for daddy to give the officials a piece of his mind so we can get Wilma and Larry

We are now staying with Darani and her family in Chennai after meeting them the day after we landed.

We were previously staying in some sort of nunnery in the centre of Chennai. It was all very olde worlde and the whole building and atmosphere was like a page from 'A Passage to India'; there was a lift with two shuttered doors and porters and everything.

. The whole family has taken us on various trips in and around Chennai including a trip to some caves and a bird park where daddy lamented our lack of a bird watchers book yet again

Hoping to get the car today but we feel it unlikely.

Seeing as we won't be getting Wilma and Larry today we have decided to go have daddy's new beard shaved. Daddy only has a beard because he has left his £200 shaver in Singapore and won't let anyone but a barber shave him.

As we did not buy any of the expensive Lonely Planet guides for the countries on our journey back we visited a good book shop in the city and bought a road atlas of India for 50p.

Also saw Transporter 3 in a packed cinema a couple of nights ago especially for daddy. Is now a firm favourite of his.

LONDON CALLING by The Crash (comence manic laughter from the direction of daddy for it was from his wit that such a glorious joke was born)

Have begun the retreat: driving from Singapore to London- one car, one trailer, one flight and four people.

As we are cheep we got the flight from Singapore to Chennai, India that took about twice as long as it should. the flight also stopped over at a town in the middle of nowhere and during that time we were forced to stay on the aeroplane while an angry looking man checked our bags. suspicious times.

tomorrow we are off to look at suitable sites to unload our container and beloved Wilma and Larry so that we may once more cruise the open road. at least until we get to the border with Pakistan.

We are all well. enjoying sights and sounds of India and daddy talking about how he has been here before. loads of times. daddy showed just how at home he is in India and has already had a particularly loud 'disagreement' with a local auto (motorised rickshaw) driver over performance vs pay.
also like new stamp in passport.

We are all fine. We hope you are all well.